Pavese Festival
The Pavese Festival 2025 will take place from 23 to 29 June in Santo Stefano Belbo, featuring a series of side events, both locally and across Italy. The guiding theme of this edition – Mari proibiti e coste barbariche (forbidden seas and barbarous coasts) – recalls a sentence from the first chapter of Moby Dick, translated into Italian by Cesare Pavese in his early twenties. The journey, real and metaphorical, with its going beyond borders, the constant quest it implies and the drive towards the unknown will thus be the focus of the many events of the program – shows, book presentations, talks, exhibitions, workshops for kids and grown-ups – which will be revealed on May, 21.
The first guests of this edition
The Pavese Festival 2025 will be anticipated by a special event on Monday 19 May featuring Georgi Gospodinov, the most prominent contemporary Bulgarian writer, awarded with the International Booker Prize (2023) and the Strega European Prize (2021), in Italy to present his new novel Il giardiniere e la morte (Voland). Bookings for this event will open on 5 May. Among the main guests of this edition who were already announced, storyteller and writer Roberto Mercadini with his Moby Dick and actor Neri Marcorè accompanied by singer-songwriter Luca Barbarossa with Mari proibiti e coste barbariche, a show conceived specifically for this edition’s theme. Tickets for their events are already on sale on TicketOne or at our bookshop: click on the images below to buy them. All the other events – excluding the Friday night show, soon to be announced – will be free upon reservation (starting from 10 June).
The Festival over the years
The Pavese Festival was launched in 2001 as a tribute to Cesare Pavese in his hometown. Mixing music, art, theatre and literature, our Festival invites prominent guests from the Italian literary and music scene to explore Pavese’s themes and works in Santo Stefano Belbo. Throughout the years, our Festival has turned into an event not just for Pavese’s enthusiasts but also for visitors of a unique vineyard landscape, acknowledged as UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2014. The Festival offers in fact the chance to discover the Langhe region that played such a kay role in shaping the author’s poetics.
Among the big names of its 24 past editions Avion Travel, Claudio Baglioni, Mario Biondi, Andrea Bosca, Boosta, Ezio Bosso, Vinicio Capossela, Colapesce & Dimartino, Cristina Donà, Marcello Fois, Alessandro Haber, Jhumpa Lahiri, Fiorella Mannoia, Neri Marcorè, Laura Morante, Pacifico, Omar Pedrini, Michele Placido, Alessandro Preziosi, Isabella Ragonese, Enrico Rava, just to mention a few.
Pavese Festival 2024 (ph. Eunice Brovida, Chiara Sacchetto, Gianluca Vigilante)
Pavese Festival 2023 (ph. Eunice Brovida, Fabjo Hazizaj, Andrea Icardi)
Pavese Festival 2022 (ph. Fabjo Hazizaj, Chiara Sacchetto)
Pavese Festival 2021 (ph. Eunice Brovida, Fabjo Hazizaj)
Pavese Festival 2020 (ph. Andrea Icardi)
Pavese Festival 2019 (ph. Claudio Marchini)
Pavese Festival 2018 (ph. Claudio Marchini)
